Press Releases & Updates 2003

It all began with the trial of Carolyn Leckie, a midwife from East Kilbride, on a charge of breaching the peace at the blockade of Faslane on February 13th 2002. Carolyn had received papers from the Procurator Fiscal’s office purporting to be the witness statement of the first police witness PC Vickers. When Carolyn quoted from the statement PC Vickers said that he had not written it. Carolyn submitted that there was no case to answer due to this contradiction. Justice of the Peace John Macphail said that the case should continue, since witness statements in themselves had no standing as evidence. The next police witness, PC Craig Martin, did not impress as a reliable witness since he averred that he did not know what the demonstration was about, had not read any of the placards or banners, and did not know the function of the Faslane base.

The Crown case was led by the senior Dumbarton Procurator Fiscal, PF Donnelly, who succeeded in objecting to Carolyn cross-examining police witnesses on the legality of Trident but in his own summing up went so far as to state that "Trident is there to make sure that people can make their views known." JP Macphail found Carolyn guilty and fined her £100.

Next up was Tony Davies, a retired doctor from Edinburgh, charged with breaching the peace at the blockade of the base in October 2001. PF Donnelly, with no explanation, said that the Crown was accepting Tony’s not guilty plea. When the trial was over Tony asked the PF what lay behind this mysterious decision and was told: "I thought you looked fairly respectable". Court watchers thought it more likely that the clock was moving on and the PF had had enough for one day.

Eric Wallace, who was present in court, said: "The JP may have been technically correct to rule the dubious witness statement irrelevant to the evidence but if he had been worth his salt he would have shown strong judicial disapproval at this corrupt practice and announced his intention to raise the matter formally with both the police and the PF’s office. The complacency of this magistrate at shoddy and practice by the Crown and the police is quite incredible. We will not let this matter rest."

Printer friendly version

Home | Top